


Court

by Monochromely



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 05:59:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15260946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monochromely/pseuds/Monochromely
Summary: Shortly after Pink Diamond is shattered, the Diamonds hold court.





	Court

**Author's Note:**

> I _was_ writing "Flower Child", and then this horribly angsty piece demanded to be written.

Court was in session.

Usually a long and tedious affair, today it was even more so because they were holding joint court.

Blue’s, her own, and…

Yellow Diamond’s gaze slid involuntarily to the empty pink throne to her immediate left.

… Pink’s.

She made up her mind to destroy the damn thing as soon as this sordid event was over.

It had only been six lunar cycles since Pink had been… had been… _destroyed_ … and Homeworld was seething in the vacuum she left behind. Her entire court and army—what was left of it anyway—had to be disseminated between the remaining Diamonds, which of course, pissed off Homeworld elites who didn’t want to assimilate Earthlings into their private folds. And then there was the usual fare. The gems who came to them with minor issues that could have been solved by a _Ruby_ with half of a brain. Era One gems discriminating against Era Twos. Peridots who couldn’t manage their Kindergartens. Agates who were sick and tired of the Quartzes they bossed around.

It was hell.

Actual, literal hell.

But that didn’t stop these gems.

An orange Jasper approached the altar with a surety of step that did not falter even before the Diamonds. Sizable physique. Striking sandstone markings. A handsomely cut and glossy gem situated where her nose should have been. Had it not been for the pink diamond insignia embedded into her uniform, Yellow might have mistaken her for an Era One Homeworld gem.

“My Diamonds.” The Jasper knelt, and her long, white hair fanned out across her back like untamed feathers.

“State your name and your purpose, Quartz,” she demanded brusquely. She didn’t have the patience for the usual foreplay today.

“Jasper, Facet 9-XL. Cut 1-8K.” The Jasper’s voice had a guttural, angry quality to it, as though it had been scorched in a desert for thousands of years. She reassumed her standing position and dared to look Yellow in the eye. “I’m here because I feel as though my time would be better spent in an active army than in the zoo.”

It was a brazen statement.

Insolent even.

Had it been any other day, Yellow might have felt in the mood to shatter her, but…

She glanced over to her right this time, absorbing the statuesque Blue Diamond with an imperceptible sigh that filtered through her thin nostrils. Blue had been catatonic since court had begun, a useless stone fountain for the steady flow of tears that leaked from her lowered veil.

… but today was not a day to think about _shattering_.

The Jasper was referring to the fact that Yellow Diamond had chosen to punt all of the Earth-made Quartzes off to the tiny, floating station a few lightyears away rather than deal with them all individually. To hell if that wasn’t their original purpose. Quartzes weren’t exactly a rare cut of gem.

They could guard Pink’s zoo and be happy with it.

After all, someone had to do it now that all of the Rose Quartzes had been bubbled.

“And pray tell, why should I relocate _you_?” Yellow inquired, equal parts above this bureaucratic nonsense—distant and cold—and yet, incisively venomous, the leader and the mourner wrapped into one voice. “I’ll concede that you’re a decently sized gem, but why employ you over a Topaz?”

Topazes were made on Homeworld.

Topazes didn’t reek of that _wretched_ planet Pink had called her colony until very recently.

The Jasper lowered her defiant gaze for the first time… but she did not lower her voice.

“I’ve got drive,” she said to the ground.

“What was that?” Yellow asked sharply.

“I’ve got drive,” Jasper repeated huskily, and she jutted her chin out proudly. When she spoke, her razor sharp teeth clashed against each other like steel. “I’ve got reason! I’ve got purpose! I’d do anything to get my hands on the traitor who _shattered_ _my Diamond._ ”

One of her massive, orange hands curled into a fist and rammed itself into the pink insignia on her chest.

The belligerent sound echoed through the throne room like thunder.

And then, a scream rent the air like lightning.

Yellow had just enough time to locate the source of the sound before the room was flooded in blue.

Five thousand eight hundred and fifty something years later, Blue’s pathokinetic grief would only bring a tear to the corner of her eye in front of a half-human child named Steven.

But today, when everything was so raw and new and awful in this mad, damn world, Yellow Diamond doubled over in her throne as the extent of Blue Diamond’s pain ran through her body like sword after sword after sword.

She cried out through her gritted teeth and saw that lesser Gems had poofed out—Jasper and the Pearls, their devolved gems shaking on the floor.

And then there was Blue.

Collapsed at the foot of her throne.

Her hair flying around her in a grief-stricken frenzy as she pulled at her own diamond.

Trying to wrench it out.

“ _Blue!_ ” Yellow bellowed, her voice thick with tears that both were and weren’t hers at the same time. Millions of crystal clear images seized through her mind’s eye like a dust storm, and every single one of them was of Pink.

Right down to the last time Yellow saw her.

She was on her knees, hands clasped just below her chin—fearful of the rebel called Rose Quartz.

And Yellow had dismissed her with a wave of a hand.

Had told her that she was being ridiculous.

No mere Quartz could harm a Diamond.

And now Pink was never coming back.

“Blue!” Yellow gritted her teeth and all but propelled herself out of the throne, her muscles spasming as they fought against the desperate urge to break down on the ground. A guttural groan forced its way up the column of her throat and past her clenched lips.

It was this noise that finally captured Blue Diamond’s attention. She stopped trying to excavate her damn gem long enough to look up and stare at Yellow as though she was seeing her for the first time. Her streaming eyes—dark and heavy and storming with agony—widened in realization.

“ _You,_ ” she whispered, and Yellow did not like the sound of her tone.

It was reverent.

It was dangerous.

The Diamond began to crawl over to her, her dark cloak dragging against the blue stained ground.

Yellow Diamond could see every microscopic detail of the gem’s body.

Her gloved hands scraping against the floor.

The chaotic energy swirling behind her glowing eyes.

The labored heaving of her chest.

Even her diamond seemed to be dripping.

“Knock this off, Blue,” Yellow snapped, and she sounded tougher than she actually was because she began to retreat until the back of her knees touched the edge of the throne again. She finally had to crumple into it to keep from falling. “You’re a Diamond, and you’re demeaning yourself by—” But she was cut short. Blue’s trembling hand shot out and grabbed her own.

A different kind of electricity shot up her skin.

She was utterly frozen.

Her hand and mind and body captured as Blue knelt before her, her forehead touching Yellow’s legs.

“I can’t do it myself, Yellow. You’ve got to do it.”

“Do what?” She all but shrieked, hysteria climbing up her voice. “What the hell do you want me to do exactly?”

But she knew what Blue wanted.

She always knew.

“End this,” she said quietly, squeezing her hand.

And then she pulled it down to her gem, slowly, tenderly.

Yellow’s fingers grazed the hard edges of Blue Diamond.

“End this,” she had said.

_End me._

“ _Please,_ ” she added faintly, as though that would be enough to sway her favor.

As though _please_ was greater than the thousands upon thousands of years they had spent together, ruling worlds, devouring them.

Talking.

Laughing.

Conquering.

Leading.

_Loving_ in the very few ways they knew how.

It wasn’t.

Yellow Diamond already had shards on her hands.

She’d given in.

She’d given Pink a whole world.

She would never be so generous again.

“What about me, Blue?” Her voice was strangled in her mouth. She couldn’t bring herself to move her hand away from Blue’s gem, from its warmth, from the life it contained inside of it, no matter how miserable and empty and desolate of a life it was. (Pink’s shards had been still and lifeless, had been scattered all over the dirt like they were just common rocks.) “How could you ever be so cruel?”

It was a horrible thing to say.

It was the right thing to say.

Blue Diamond’s overpowering aura dissipated, and she dropped her head into Yellow’s lap.

And she wept.

Yellow sat still and let her do it as a single tear wound its way down the hardened lines of her face.

It fell into Blue’s hair.

“I’m sorry, Yellow.” The apology was muffled against her clothes.

Yellow closed her eyes and leaned back against the cool surface of her throne, a tired hand resting over her face.

She was more sorry than Blue could ever know.

They stayed together like that for a very long time.

An incomplete puzzle.

When Jasper reformed some days later, Yellow Diamond assigned her to be a part of the elite guard on Homeworld.

And she promised the gem that when the time came, she could be the one to bring Rose Quartz’s gem to her on a silver platter.

Preferably in pieces.


End file.
